Bike sharing giant plans further international expansion as craze sweeping China goes global

Chinese bike-sharing behemoth Mobike Technology Co is gearing up its overseas expansion, as the company aims to meet its ambitious goal of operating in 200 cities globally by the end of this year.

Beijing-based Mobike announced on Aug 1 the launch of bike-rental services in London, with a plan to operate 750 bikes in September.

"Considering our current operation status, we are able to complete and may even exceed our global expansion goal of 200 cities," says Chris Martin, Mobike vice-president and head of its overseas expansion business. Much of that expansion will be domestic, but he says Mobike will cover more countries in the second half of the year.

Mobike's orange dockless bikes are now crowding sidewalks in more than 150 cities in countries including Singapore, the United Kingdom, Japan and Italy.

Users in overseas markets will be able to ride shared bikes by simply scanning a QR code on the downloaded app and paying online on their smartphones via their debit or credit cards. Martin says that as Mobike is set to cover more countries, the company will explore more payment methods.

According to the company, the shared bikes are produced in China and then exported to overseas markets, and it will also seek more global partners in the supply chain business.

The bike-sharing craze sweeping China is now going global. Mobike's archrival Ofo Inc previously announced it plans to enter 200 cities in 20 countries by the end of this year.

On Aug 1, Ofo said it plans to operate a total of 6,000 shared bikes in Bangkok by the end of September.

Now Mobike has rolled out more than 6 million bikes in more than 150 cities worldwide. Its top rival, Ofo, says it has more than 100 million users and has recorded more than 2 billion rides since its debut in 2015.

Zhang Xu, an analyst at Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys, says bike-sharing companies' overseas expansion will help them to expand their influence in the overseas market, but it will also bring about challenges and uncertainties.

"Since the overseas market is quite different from that in China, there will be problems concerning local residents' habits in terms of using bikes, the way of operating bikes and local policies when Mobike operates its service overseas," Zhang says.

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(China Daily Africa Weekly 08/04/2017 page26)